Plays and Poems

436

Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning:
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To soun is confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O! do but think

You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this nary,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women, 20
Either past or not arriv'd to pith and puissance :
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a

sie je;

SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur.

Alarums. Enter King HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling. ladders.

K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base.
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noblest English!
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof;
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you, good

Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy. Bard. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!

Nym. Pray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot; and for mine own part, I have not a case of lives: the humour of it is too hot. that is the very plain-song of it.

Pist. The plain-song is most just, for humours do abound:

Knocks go and come, God's vassals drop and die; And sword and shield,

Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.

Pist. And I:

Boy.

Nym. These be good humours! your honour wins bad humours.

Flu. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is certain; and of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions: by Cheshu, he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the

Romans.

Jamy. I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.
Flu. God-den to your worship, good Captain

Gou. How now, Captain Macmorris ! have you quit the mines? have the pioners given o'er?

Mac. By Chrish, la! tish ill done: the work ish give over, the trumpet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la! in an hour: O! tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done.

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Flu. Captain Macmorris, I peseech you now, will you voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline: that is the point.

James. Exeunt NYM, PISTOL, and BARDOLPH, followed by FLUELLEN. Boy. As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three, but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such anticks do not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and red-faced; by the means whereof a' faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a' breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a' should be thought a coward: but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for a' never broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three half-pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel; I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or their handkerchers: which makes much against my manhood if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and seek some better service: their villany goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up. Exit.

Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following. Gow. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.

Flu. To the mines! tell you the duke it is not so good to come to the mines. For look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of the war; the concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you, th' athversary, you may discuss unto the duke, look you, is digt himself four yard under the countermines. By Cheshu, I think a' will plow up all if there is not better directions.

Gow. The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is given, is altogether directed by an Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i' faith. Flu. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not? Gow. I think it be.

Flu. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will verify as much in his peard: he has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-dog.

Enter MACMORRIS and JAMY, at a distance. Gow. Here a' comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.

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Jamy. It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath: and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry.

Mac. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me the day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the king, and the dukes: it is no The town is beseeched, and time to discourse. the trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing: 'tis shame for us all; so God sa' me, 'tis shame to stand still; it be cut, and works to be done; and there ish is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la !

Jamy. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slumber, aile de gud service, or aile lig i' the grund for it; ay, or go to death; and aile pay it as valorously as I may, that sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain hear some question 'tween you tway.

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Flu. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your nation-

Mac. Of my nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks of my

nation?

Flu. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain Macmorris, perad venture I shall think you do not use me with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look you; being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of wars, and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

Mac. I do not know you so good a man as myself: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head. Gow. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

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Jamy. A! that's a foul fault. A parley sounded.
Gow. The town sounds a parley.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, when there is more

better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of wars; and there is an end. Exeunt.

SCENE III. The Same. Before the Gates
of Harfleur.

The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English Forces below. Enter King HENRY and his Train.

K. Hen. How yet resolves the governor of the town?

This is the latest parle we will admit :
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction

Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering
infants.

What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is 't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?

What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daugh-
ters;

Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;

Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen. 41
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.

K. Hen. Open your gates! Come, uncle Exeter, Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain, And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French: Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle, The winter coming on and sickness growing Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.

Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'ap prenne à parler. Comment appellez vous la main en Anglois?

Alice. La main? elle est appellée de hand.
Kath. De hand. Et les doigts?

Alice. Les doigts? ma foy, je oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendray. Les doigts? je pense qu'ils sont appellés de fingres; ouy, de fingres

Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon escolier. J'ai gagné deux mots d'Anglois vistement. Comment appellez vous les ongles?

Alice. Les ongles? nous les appellons de nails. Kath. De nails. Escoutez; dites moy si je parle bien de hand, de fingres, et de nails.

Alice. C'est bien dict, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.

Kath. Dites moy l'Anglois pour le bras.
Alice. De arm, madame,

Kath. Et le coude?

Alice. De elbow.

Kath. Je ne doute point d'apprendre par la grace de Dieu, et en peu de temps.

Alice. N'avez vous déjà oublié ce que je vous ay enseigné?

Kath. Non, je reciteray à vous promptement. De hand, de fingre, de mails,

Alice. De nails, madame.

Kath. De nails, de arme, de ilbow. Alice. Sauf vostre honneur, d'elbow. Kath. Ainsi dis je; d'elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appellez vous le pied et la robe? Alice. Le foot, madame; et le coun.

Kath. Le foot, et le coun? O Seigneur Dieu ! ils sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d'honneur d'user. Je ne voudrois prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France, pour tout le monde. Fole! le foot et le coun! Néant-moins je reciteray une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: d'hand, de fingre, de nails, d'arm, d'elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, le coun.

Alice. Excellent, madame!

Kath. C'est assez pour une fois: allons nous à diner. Exeunt.

SCENE V.-The Same. Another Room in
the Same.

Enter the French King, the DAUPHIN, the Duke of BOURBON, the Constable of France, and Others.

Fr. King. 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.

Con. And if he be not fought withal, my lord, Let us not live in France; let us quit all, And give our vineyards to a barbarous people. Dau. O Dieu vivant shall a few sprays of us, The emptying of our fathers' luxury, Our scions, put in wild and savage stock, Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds, And overlook their grafters ?

Bour. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!

Mort de ma vie ! if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
Con. Dieu de batailles! where have they this
mettle?

Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden
water,

A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,

Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat? 20
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O! for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty
people

Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields;
Poor we may call them in their native lords.

Dau. By faith and honour,

Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out; and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth
To new-store France with bastard warriors.
Bour. They bid us to the English dancing-
schools,

And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos;
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.

Fr. King. Where is Montjoy the herald? speed
him hence :

Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edg'd
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
Charles Delabreth, high constable of France; 40
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconberg,
Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and
knights,

For your great seats now quit you of great shames,
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur:
Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon :

SCENE VI.-The English Camp in Picardy. Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN. Gow. How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?

Flu. I assure you there is very excellent services committed at the pridge.

Gow. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

Flu. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and my uttermost power: he is not, God be praised and plessed any hurt in the world, but keeps the pridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the

pridge; I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as gallant service.

Gow. What do you call him?

Flu. He is called Aunchient Pistol.
Gow. I know him not.

Enter PISTOL.

Flu. Here is the man.

Pist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours: The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Flu. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pist. Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,

And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate
And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone,- 30

Flu. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is plind: and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral. Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;

For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must a' be.

A damned death!

Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate.
But Exeter hath given the doom of death
For pax of little price.

Therefore, go speak; the duke will hear thy voice;

And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach: 50
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee
requite.

Flu. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pist. Why then, rejoice therefore.

Flu. Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his good pleasure and put him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.

Pist. Die and be damn'd; and figo for thy friendship!

Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain ! Flu. Very good.

Exit.

Gow. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal: I remember him now; a bawd, a cut-purse.

Flu. I'll assure you a' uttered as prave words, at the pridge as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.

Gow. Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great commanders' names, and they will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what a beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook.

on.

Enter King HENRY, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers. Flu. God pless your majesty!

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen! cam'st thou from the bridge?

Flu. Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is gone off, look you, and there is gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th' athversary was have possession of the pridge, but he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge. I can tell your majesty the duke is a prave man.

102

K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen? Flu. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great, reasonable great: marry, for my

Mont. Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master, so much my office.

K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,

And tell thy king I do not seek him now,
But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth,
Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,

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My numbers lessen'd, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me,
God,

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That I do brag thus! this your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another
neighbour

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